Congressman asks NSA to provide metadata for “lost” IRS e-mails

"Your prompt cooperation in this matter will be greatly appreciated."

Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) has sent a formal letter to the National Security Agency asking it to hand over “all its metadata” on the e-mail accounts of a former division director at the Internal Revenue Service.

“Your prompt cooperation in this matter will be greatly appreciated and will help establish how IRS and other personnel violated rights protected by the First Amendment,” Stockman wrote on Friday.

The IRS has been under investigation since 2013, when the tax agency revealed that it selectively targeted political groups applying for tax-exempt status, particularly those with conservative and “Tea Party” leanings and later those with liberal and “Occupy”-related names.

“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries,” said Dave Camp (R-MI), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, in a statement also on Friday. “There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General.”

It would be interesting if they did... I kind of envision One 800lb federal gorilla peeing in another 800lb federal gorilla's cheerios.

Political grandstanding aside... Even if they have it I doubt they would admit it or release it, precisely because that would show that even the beurocrats are being watched and THAT would be a true political landmine.

It would be interesting if they did... I kind of envision One 800lb federal gorilla peeling in another 800lb federal gorilla's cheerios.

Political grandstanding aside... Even if they have it I doubt they would admit it or release it, precisely because that would show that even the bureaucrats are being watched and THAT would be a true political landmine.

I would show, but I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if they do. After all one must have a backup plan if the powers that be get out of line.

The request to the NSA is indeed humorous, but Ars Technica angle should be focused on the outrageous claim that Lerner's computer crashing deleted all of her emails for 2 years.

It's possible to imagine that a computer novice might set their email to store locally and immediately delete from the server. However, it is inconceivable that any organization would do this. Then there are the federal laws that set very strict guidelines on government email use and storage.

It would actually be more believable to say her dog ate it. Because dogs are biological, and... you know non-determinate and stuff.

It would be interesting if they did... I kind of envision One 800lb federal gorilla peeling in another 800lb federal gorilla's cheerios.

Political grandstanding aside... Even if they have it I doubt they would admit it or release it, precisely because that would show that even the beurocrats are being watched and THAT would be a true political landmine.

Possibly even the beginning of actual change. What do politicians care that the little people are being spied upon every moment of the day if they're above any such concerns? If all of a sudden what's good for the goose is also good for the elected politician gander, then things start to become a bit less tenable, especially if said gander has a lot of reasons to not want to be spied upon...

If you have a computer crash, lose important tax data and have the misfortune to be audited in the year you lost the data, the IRS won't have any mercy. Having been compliant for 20 years won't mean a thing.

In contrast, the IRS has infinite resources by comparison. They have no limits on IT spending, armies of lawyers and accountants at their disposal. Yet, when they fuck up, and they do that often, they expect the country to show the consideration they are so unwilling to bestow on us.

Of course anyone familiar with email systems knows that emails are backed up to servers and servers backed up elsewhere.

So the administration's claim that Lois Lerner's computer crashed and two years of email were destroyed is a more transparent lie than the story Nixon told about his secretary accidentally erasing 18 1/2 minutes of tape.

Although this is a classic case of technology intersecting with current events, AT hasn't been interested until now when the NSA can be roped in and made the main focus.

Assuming they can get it. And I'll guess that most would come to that assumption. The NSA needs to stay out of it. Even if they could get information, that for the greater good, they would provide, it's specifically not their place to intervene in domestic issues.

““The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries,” said Dave Camp (R-MI), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,

....It being in the news in 2013, the public apology from The Internal Revenue Service, the public admission by the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political opponents, the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich announcing a hearing into the matter, and the groups affected publicly complaining about it, didn't give you a clue there just might be an investigation?

Well, Representative Camp, you must not be the same chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Representative Camp that called for a hearing on this event in 2013. You must be the Representative Camp on the "see no evil" committee part of that monkey house you guys call Congress.

I read that as "I'm just learning of these emails being missing." Not about the whole issue.

If you have a computer crash, lose important tax data and have the misfortune to be audited in the year you lost the data, the IRS won't have any mercy. Having been compliant for 20 years won't mean a thing.

In contrast, the IRS has infinite resources by comparison. They have no limits on IT spending, armies of lawyers and accountants at their disposal. Yet, when they fuck up, and they do that often, they expect the country to show the consideration they are so unwilling to bestow on us.

(edit: grammar)

Exactly. Plus, think about the regulations private companies must adhere to for communications and data. Shouldn't we demand our government adhere to those same standards, not only for transparency's sake but also, I dunno, to ensure computer crashes don't cripple an entire flipping department?

Assuming they can get it. And I'll guess that most would come to that assumption. The NSA needs to stay out of it. Even if they could get information, that for the greater good, they would provide, it's specifically not their place to intervene in domestic issues.

Then they shouldn't be scooping up domestic communications.

But... But... Terrorists. If we don't read every email everyone anywhere writes, how will we know who wants to kill us? Making a list of the friends and relations of the people we execute? Do you know how long that list would be?

It's possible to imagine that a computer novice might set their email to store locally and immediately delete from the server. However, it is inconceivable that any organization would do this. Then there are the federal laws that set very strict guidelines on government email use and storage.

It would actually be more believable to say her dog ate it. Because dogs are biological, and... you know non-determinate and stuff.

While I have no specific information about what e-mail system the IRS uses, it stands to reason that its not POP or IMAP based, and probably MS Exchange, Lotus, or a similar enterprise level messaging system. That said, the end user would likely not have any control over what happens to the email on the server, and there's probably an archiving solution in place, external to that messaging system.

Speaking from my own experiences, archiving email tends to be fraught with problems. Most systems don't have a way to audit themselves and ensure every message generated is saved. So when the IRS say they "lost" the emails, I would be inclined to believe what they mean is 'we never archived that users mail during those dates'.

I'm sure every organization is different, but my org has a very strict 90 days retention policy. After 90 days we do not keep the emails - they are forcibly removed from the servers. Now of course users can store them in some sort of offsite sore like a PST in Outlook or a local Maildir like in Claws (what I use), but if in that situation, my computer crashes in a week, they would have no email longer than 90 days ago (plus the backups they made and retain for 14 days, so in effect 90+14.)

Assuming they can get it. And I'll guess that most would come to that assumption. The NSA needs to stay out of it. Even if they could get information, that for the greater good, they would provide, it's specifically not their place to intervene in domestic issues.

Then they shouldn't be scooping up domestic communications.

But... But... Terrorists. If we don't read every email everyone anywhere writes, how will we know who wants to kill us? Making a list of the friends and relations of the people we execute? Do you know how long that list would be?

““The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries,” said Dave Camp (R-MI), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,

....It being in the news in 2013, the public apology from The Internal Revenue Service, the public admission by the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political opponents, the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich announcing a hearing into the matter, and the groups affected publicly complaining about it, didn't give you a clue there just might be an investigation?

Well, Representative Camp, you must not be the same chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Representative Camp that called for a hearing on this event in 2013. You must be the Representative Camp on the "see no evil" committee part of that monkey house you guys call Congress.

He is saying the lost emails are new news. Seems rather obvious.

Frankly trying to pull the lost email trick is silly, but it has a history of working in one form or another. One of my favorites being Hillary's Rose Law Firm billing records that mysteriously appeared in the Book Room of the White House one day...

It would be interesting if they did... I kind of envision One 800lb federal gorilla peeling in another 800lb federal gorilla's cheerios.

Political grandstanding aside... Even if they have it I doubt they would admit it or release it, precisely because that would show that even the beurocrats are being watched and THAT would be a true political landmine.

Possibly even the beginning of actual change. What do politicians care that the little people are being spied upon every moment of the day if they're above any such concerns? If all of a sudden what's good for the goose is also good for the elected politician gander, then things start to become a bit less tenable, especially if said gander has a lot of reasons to not want to be spied upon...

It does seem like it might be a cleverly planned request, that if totally successful will reign in the IRS and the NSA in one fell swoop.

For example, it is not uncommon for government IT to disallow the storage of individual PSTs on servers (where they can be easily backed up, but will also quickly fill disk up), so if he didn't do backups on his own, they'd be gone if the hard drive was inaccessable. If he wasn't IT, I don't expect him to automatically be able to manage a backup. But then, I'm surprised when some of our non-IT people manage to turn on a computer without breaking it.

Similarly, you've got encryption issues as a possibility. I've run into multiple instances where decryption of the drive (during bootup) has failed, and the drive itself is unrecoverable. Reformattable, sure, but either way, the data is still lost.

More commonly (though probably not applicable here) was when someone retired and hadn't transferred all their data over, and we couldn't decrypt it to get to it. In a couple of those cases, it was theoretically possible that a higher level key in the chain could have allowed decryption, but the policy in place then (and now, for all I know - it hasn't happened lately) was that the higher level keys would only be used in cases of gathering criminal evidence.

While I certainly cannot condone what the NSA has or is doing, they should have this. Hell when I was in the US military in the late 90s they told us straight up that the NSA monitors our emails (of course at the time I was not aware it was going to go as broad as it has become)

They should have this on hand to spank the IRS (though I would be more comfortable with a 3rd party non governmental entity for oversight of groups such as the IRS.

I would honestly believe they lost Lerner's e-mails. Mostly cause it's likely they just deleted her account when she resigned.

Don't they have retention policies in place?

My agency has a 30-day retention policy on non-case-related e-mails ("Hey guys, headed to Starbucks, anyone want to come?") and a 90-day policy on certain case-related e-mails. Some e-mails are 120 days, but those are rarer. We're supposed to be getting an automated retention software, but that was promised in October...

I don't know the IRS's retention policy, but I'd imagine it the same or similar.

The request to the NSA is indeed humorous, but Ars Technica angle should be focused on the outrageous claim that Lerner's computer crashing deleted all of her emails for 2 years.

It's possible to imagine that a computer novice might set their email to store locally and immediately delete from the server. However, it is inconceivable that any organization would do this. Then there are the federal laws that set very strict guidelines on government email use and storage.

It would actually be more believable to say her dog ate it. Because dogs are biological, and... you know non-determinate and stuff.

You say this, and yet this was exactly how it was at the company I work for until just the last few years. Our mail was originally just a unix box doing pop, then finally exchange, but with a 10 meg mailbox. It's only been within the last year or so that they got us up to 2 gig, which, when considering presentations and such, is still not a huge amount, so mail gets archived into local folders which then get wiped out when the local disk goes bad.

I suppose the best way to put it is that there are a lot of idiots in government. We don't always know what we should do in some situations. I subscribe to Hanlon's Razor in a lot of these stories of sordid governmental news. "Never subscribe to malice what could be easily explained with incompetence."

I would honestly believe they lost Lerner's e-mails. Mostly cause it's likely they just deleted her account when she resigned.

Don't they have retention policies in place?

No doubt they do, but a lot of offices use the legal minimum. For us, that is 90 days - anything older than that and it is gone (deleted/purged from backups) unless I manually backed it up (saved it as a PDF or something). It is increasingly common as companies (and government offices) seek to reduce exposure in the case of lawsuits - minimizing the number of emails exposed to subpoena is becoming standard operating procedure, and the only way to do that is to have a rigid retention policy that mandates deletion of all emails at the earliest legally allowable date.

Several people have technically good responses about why the emails wouldn't be retained.

However, if the IRS can expect me to retain information for years, then it's not unreasonable to expect the same. In this case the IRS is basically saying "Sorry, we can't be audited because we didn't retain the relevant information", which just doesn't fly.